Posted By Robert Jackson I understand from a council friend of mine that anything above an inch constitutes a trip hazard therefore can be claimed against? Not sure if thats just a council policy or he was leading me up the garden path, either way good luck with your research Best Rmj

Posted By Saracen11 Hi JWG, "Is there a tripping hazard height that seems to be acceptable?" This is like asking "Is there an acceptable height to fall from?". There are many individual factors that will ensure the next injury due to a fall is more serious than the last... I agree with CFT, if you become aware of it, fix it AFARP. As for councils paying out... again, don't be lead up the garden path here, I know of a council recently that went to court and defended a STF claim for £700... and won! Regards

Posted By Stupendous Man JWG - many local authorities will set different measurements as action levels. I have been out of the highways arena for a little while now, but I do recall that there is some guidance documentation that makes a specific recommendation. Perhaps one of our LA colleagues can help here. So yes, in effect there is a 'tolerable hazard height' - is this not the spirit of determining what is reasonable? Are we suggesting that local authorities and premises owners should re-lay all paving slabs that do not match perfectly?

Posted By Martyn Hendrie I believe the 1 inch (25 mm) comes from the case of Vincent Kemp -v- Scottish Secretery (1999) when he tripped, whilst drunk, over a kerb misalligned by 25 mm. He claimed £750,000 damages and was awarded £500,000 more importantly the case went to the higher courts and set a precedent.

Posted By RA JWG, Check with your insurance company- they will be dealing with the claim therefore in the best position to specifically advise you regarding your situation. RA

Posted By Helen Horton Hi Merv It was a bit of a bizarre judgement and the one that set me off on my research into pavement tripping cases. The inspector just drove around with a map of an area to cover each day - he never got out of the car to look more closely at pavements and just jotted down the worst problems on a log sheet. This was mainly potholes in roads not pavements. The Judge said that considering the number of miles of roads to be checked that this was a reasonable way of doing it even though I proved that he couldn't possibly have seen all the pavement area from a seated position in a car travelling at 30mph. This got me checking other similar cases in the previous 5 years and I found that after the Liverpool cases it became almost impossible to win a claim resulting from pavement tripping where a local authority was involved. Much like the "guidelines" to judges sitting on stress cases a number of "tests" were issued in relation to pavement tripping and it was almost impossible to fail the tests and be held liable so long as you had some sort of checking system in place and a system for arranging remedial action that could be put into operation once the defect was identified. One thing that struck me was that in none of the judgements did it seem necessary for checks to be made for loose or wobbly paving slabs that would have needed physical checks to be made, it was only necessary to identify alignment defects. Hence the drive by inspection passed the test of reasonableness. The only cases that resulted in compensation for the claimant were ones in which the defect had been notified to the council and no action had been taken. In one even more bizarre judgement it was actually stated that the claimant would have to have told the council of the defect and if they had they should have been aware of it and avoided it and prevented the accident. Catch 22 or what? The only way you can prove the council didn't take action was that you had reported it, if you had reported it you should have avoided it therefore you are the author of your own downfall. There are lots more "amusing" anomalies like this, isn't having a adversarial civil legal system fun?